Optimizing high-coordination shell of Co-based single-atom catalysts for efficient ORR and zinc-air batteries

Atom-level modulation of the coordination environment for single-atom catalysts(SACs)is considered as an effective strategy for elevating the catalytic performance.For the MNxsite,breaking the symmetrical geometry and charge distribution by introducing relatively weak electronegative atoms into the first/second shell is an efficient way,but it remains challenging for elucidating the underlying mechanism of interaction.Herein,a practical strategy was reported to rationally design single cobalt atoms coordinated with both phosphorus and nitrogen atoms in a hierarchically porous carbon derived from metal-organic frameworks.X-ray absorption spectrum reveals that atomically dispersed Co sites are coordinated with four N atoms in the first shell and varying numbers of P atoms in the second shell(denoted as Co-N/P-C).The prepared catalyst exhibits excellent oxygen reduction reaction(ORR)activity as well as zinc-air battery performance.The introduction of P atoms in the Co-SACs weakens the interaction between Co and N,significantly promoting the adsorption process of ^(*)OOH,resulting in the acceleration of reaction kinetics and reduction of thermodynamic barrier,responsible for the increased intrinsic activity.Our discovery provides insights into an ultimate design of single-atom catalysts with adjustable electrocatalytic activities for efficient electrochemical energy conversion.

A coordinated operation method of wind-PV-hydrogenstorage multi-agent energy system

Wind-photovoltaic(PV)-hydrogen-storage multi-agent energy systems are expected to play an important role in promoting renewable power utilization and decarbonization.In this study,a coordinated operation method was proposed for a wind-PVhydrogen-storage multi-agent energy system.First,a coordinated operation model was formulated for each agent considering peer-to-peer power trading.Second,a coordinated operation interactive framework for a multi-agent energy system was proposed based on the theory of the alternating direction method of multipliers.Third,a distributed interactive algorithm was proposed to protect the privacy of each agent and solve coordinated operation strategies.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed coordinated operation method was tested on multi-agent energy systems with different structures,and the operational revenues of the wind power,PV,hydrogen,and energy storage agents of the proposed coordinated operation model were improved by approximately 59.19%,233.28%,16.75%,and 145.56%,respectively,compared with the independent operation model.

Group Hybrid Coordination Control of Multi-Agent Systems With Time-Delays and Additive Noises

A new kind of group coordination control problemgroup hybrid coordination control is investigated in this paper.The group hybrid coordination control means that in a whole multi-agent system(MAS)that consists of two subgroups with communications between them,agents in the two subgroups achieve consensus and containment,respectively.For MASs with both time-delays and additive noises,two group control protocols are proposed to solve this problem for the containment-oriented case and consensus-oriented case,respectively.By developing a new analysis idea,some sufficient conditions and necessary conditions related to the communication intensity betw een the two subgroups are obtained for the following two types of group hybrid coordination behavior:1)Agents in one subgroup and in another subgroup achieve weak consensus and containment,respectively;2)Agents in one subgroup and in another subgroup achieve strong consensus and containment,respectively.It is revealed that the decay of the communication impact betw een the two subgroups is necessary for the consensus-oriented case.Finally,the validity of the group control results is verified by several simulation examples.

An Optimal Control-Based Distributed Reinforcement Learning Framework for A Class of Non-Convex Objective Functionals of the Multi-Agent Network

This paper studies a novel distributed optimization problem that aims to minimize the sum of the non-convex objective functionals of the multi-agent network under privacy protection, which means that the local objective of each agent is unknown to others. The above problem involves complexity simultaneously in the time and space aspects. Yet existing works about distributed optimization mainly consider privacy protection in the space aspect where the decision variable is a vector with finite dimensions. In contrast, when the time aspect is considered in this paper, the decision variable is a continuous function concerning time. Hence, the minimization of the overall functional belongs to the calculus of variations. Traditional works usually aim to seek the optimal decision function. Due to privacy protection and non-convexity, the Euler-Lagrange equation of the proposed problem is a complicated partial differential equation.Hence, we seek the optimal decision derivative function rather than the decision function. This manner can be regarded as seeking the control input for an optimal control problem, for which we propose a centralized reinforcement learning(RL) framework. In the space aspect, we further present a distributed reinforcement learning framework to deal with the impact of privacy protection. Finally, rigorous theoretical analysis and simulation validate the effectiveness of our framework.

Coordinated restoration optimization of power-gas integrated energy system with mobile emergency sources

In an integrated energy system(IES) composed of multiple subsystems, energy coupling causes an energy supply blockage or shutdown in one subsystem, thereby affecting the energy flow distribution optimization of other subsystems.The energy supply should be globally optimized during the IES energy supply restoration process to produce the highest restoration net income. Mobile emergency sources can be quickly and flexibly connected to supply energy after an energy outage to ensure a reliable supply to the system, which adds complexity to the decision. This study focuses on a powergas IES with mobile emergency sources and analyzes the coupling relationship between the gas distribution system and the power distribution system in terms of sources, networks, and loads, and the influence of mobile emergency source transportation. The influence of the transient process caused by the restoration operation of the gas distribution system on the power distribution system is also discussed. An optimization model for power-gas IES restoration was established with the objective of maximizing the net income. The coordinated restoration optimization decision-making process was also built to realize the decoupling iteration of the power-gas IES, including system status recognition, mobile emergency source dispatching optimization, gas-to-power gas flow optimization, and parallel intra-partition restoration scheme optimization for both the power and gas distribution systems. A simulation test power-gas IES consisting of an 81-node medium-voltage power distribution network, an 89-node medium-pressure gas distribution network, and four mobile emergency sources was constructed. The simulation analysis verified the efficiency of the proposed coordinated restoration optimization method.

Multi-agent system application in accordance with game theory in bi-directional coordination network model

The multi-agent system is the optimal solution to complex intelligent problems. In accordance with the game theory, the concept of loyalty is introduced to analyze the relationship between agents' individual income and global benefits and build the logical architecture of the multi-agent system. Besides, to verify the feasibility of the method, the cyclic neural network is optimized, the bi-directional coordination network is built as the training network for deep learning, and specific training scenes are simulated as the training background. After a certain number of training iterations, the model can learn simple strategies autonomously. Also,as the training time increases, the complexity of learning strategies rises gradually. Strategies such as obstacle avoidance, firepower distribution and collaborative cover are adopted to demonstrate the achievability of the model. The model is verified to be realizable by the examples of obstacle avoidance, fire distribution and cooperative cover. Under the same resource background, the model exhibits better convergence than other deep learning training networks, and it is not easy to fall into the local endless loop.Furthermore, the ability of the learning strategy is stronger than that of the training model based on rules, which is of great practical values.

Distributed optimization of electricity-Gas-Heat integrated energy system with multi-agent deep reinforcement learning

The coordinated optimization problem of the electricity-gas-heat integrated energy system(IES)has the characteristics of strong coupling,non-convexity,and nonlinearity.The centralized optimization method has a high cost of communication and complex modeling.Meanwhile,the traditional numerical iterative solution cannot deal with uncertainty and solution efficiency,which is difficult to apply online.For the coordinated optimization problem of the electricity-gas-heat IES in this study,we constructed a model for the distributed IES with a dynamic distribution factor and transformed the centralized optimization problem into a distributed optimization problem in the multi-agent reinforcement learning environment using multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient.Introducing the dynamic distribution factor allows the system to consider the impact of changes in real-time supply and demand on system optimization,dynamically coordinating different energy sources for complementary utilization and effectively improving the system economy.Compared with centralized optimization,the distributed model with multiple decision centers can achieve similar results while easing the pressure on system communication.The proposed method considers the dual uncertainty of renewable energy and load in the training.Compared with the traditional iterative solution method,it can better cope with uncertainty and realize real-time decision making of the system,which is conducive to the online application.Finally,we verify the effectiveness of the proposed method using an example of an IES coupled with three energy hub agents.

Distributed Subgradient Algorithm for Multi-Agent Optimization With Dynamic Stepsize

In this paper,we consider distributed convex optimization problems on multi-agent networks.We develop and analyze the distributed gradient method which allows each agent to compute its dynamic stepsize by utilizing the time-varying estimate of the local function value at the global optimal solution.Our approach can be applied to both synchronous and asynchronous communication protocols.Specifically,we propose the distributed subgradient with uncoordinated dynamic stepsizes(DS-UD)algorithm for synchronous protocol and the AsynDGD algorithm for asynchronous protocol.Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed algorithms guarantee that all agents reach a consensus on the solution to the multi-agent optimization problem.Moreover,the proposed approach with dynamic stepsizes eliminates the requirement of diminishing stepsize in existing works.Numerical examples of distributed estimation in sensor networks are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Multidisciplinary design optimization for air-condition production system based on multi-agent technique

In order to guarantee the overall production performance of the multiple departments in an air-condition production industry, multidisciplinary design optimization model for production system is established based on the multi-agent technology. Local operation models for departments of plan, marketing, sales, purchasing, as well as production and warehouse are formulated into individual agents, and their respective local objectives are collectively formulated into a multi-objective optimization problem. Considering the coupling effects among the correlated agents, the optimization process is carried out based on self-adaptive chaos immune optimization algorithm with mutative scale. The numerical results indicate that the proposed multi-agent optimization model truly reflects the actual situations of the air-condition production system. The proposed multi-agent based multidisciplinary design optimization method can help companies enhance their income ratio and profit by about 33% and 36%, respectively, and reduce the total cost by about 1.8%.

Multi-agent and ant colony optimization for ship integrated power system network reconfiguration

Electric power is widely used as the main energy source of ship integrated power system(SIPS), which contains power network and electric power network. SIPS network reconfiguration is a non-linear large-scale problem. The reconfiguration solution influences the safety and stable operation of the power system. According to the operational characteristics of SIPS, a simplified model of power network and a mathematical model for network reconfiguration are established. Based on these models, a multi-agent and ant colony optimization(MAACO) is proposed to solve the problem of network reconfiguration. The simulations are carried out to demonstrate that the optimization method can reconstruct the integrated power system network accurately and efficiently.

Step-coordination Algorithm of Traffic Control Based on Multi-agent System

Aiming at the deficiency of conventional traffic control method, this paper proposes a new method based on multi-agent technology for traffic control. Different from many existing methods, this paper distinguishes traffic control on the basis of the agent technology from conventional traffic control method. The composition and structure of a multi-agent system （MAS） is first discussed. Then, the step-coordination strategies of intersection-agent, segment-agent, and area-agent are put forward. The advantages of the algorithm are demonstrated by a simulation study.

Ant Colony Optimization for Task Allocation in Multi-Agent Systems

Task allocation is a key issue of agent cooperation mechanism in Multi-Agent Systems. The important features of an agent system such as the latency of the network infrastructure, dynamic topology, and node heterogeneity impose new challenges on the task allocation in Multi-Agent environments. Based on the traditional parallel computing task allocation method and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), a novel task allocation method named Collection Path Ant Colony Optimization (CPACO) is proposed to achieve global optimization and reduce processing time. The existing problems of ACO are analyzed; CPACO overcomes such problems by modifying the heuristic function and the update strategy in the Ant-Cycle Model and establishing a threedimensional path pheromone storage space. The experimental results show that CPACO consumed only 10.3% of the time taken by the Global Search Algorithm and exhibited better performance than the Forward Optimal Heuristic Algorithm.

Multi-objective Optimization of Multi-Agent Elevator Group Control System Based on Real-time Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

In order to get a globally optimized solution for the Elevator Group Control System (EGCS) scheduling problem, an algorithm with an overall optimization function is needed. In this study, Real-time Particle Swarm Optimization (RPSO) is proposed to find an optimal solution to the EGCS scheduling problem. Different traffic patterns and controller mechanisms for EGCS are analyzed. This study focuses on up-peak traffic because of its critical importance to modern office buildings. Simulation results show that EGCS based on Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) using RPSO gives good results for up-peak EGCS scheduling problem. Besides, the elevator real-time scheduling and reallocation functions are realized based on RPSO in case new information is available or the elevator becomes busy because it is unavailable or full. This study contributes a new scheduling algorithm for EGCS, and expands the application of PSO.

A Q-based integrating interaction framework system for multi-agent coordination

Interaction is one of the crucial features of multl-agent systems, in which there are two kinds of interaction： agent-to-agent and human-to-agent. In order to unify the two kinds of interaction while designing multi-agent systems, this paper introduces Q language-a scenario description language for designing interaction among agents and humans. Based on Q, we propose an integrating interaction framework system for multi-agent coordination, in which Q scenarios are used to uniformly describe both kinds of interactions. Being in accordance to the characteristics of Q language, the Q-based framework makes the interaction process open and easily understood by the users. Additionally, it makes specific applications of multi-agent systems easy to be established by application designers. By applying agent negotiation in agent-mediated e-commerce and agent cooperation in interoperable information query on the Semantic Web, we illustrate how the presented framework for multi-agent coordination is implemented in concrete applications. At the same time, these two different applications also demonstrate usability of the presented framework and verify validity of Q language.

A Multi-Agent Particle Swarm Optimization for Power System Economic Load Dispatch

A new versatile optimization, the particle swarm optimization based on multi-agent system (MAPSO) is presented. The economic load dispatch (ELD) problem of power system can be solved by the algorithm. By competing and cooperating with the randomly selected neighbors, and adjusting its global searching ability and local exploring ability, this algorithm achieves the goal of high convergence precision and speed. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, this algorithm is tested by three different ELD cases, including 3, 13 and 40 units IEEE cases, and the experiment results are compared with those tested by other intelligent algorithms in the same cases. The compared results show that feasible solutions can be reached effectively, local optima can be avoided and faster solution can be applied with the proposed algorithm, the algorithm for ELD problem is versatile and efficient.

Power Purchase Model of Provincial Grids Based on Diverse Energy Coordination Hedging Optimization

Under the background of energy conservation, the grid companies should give priority to consumptive hydropower, wind power and other clean electricity to fulfill their social responsibility and promote the carbon emission reduction in power industry. But under the current power purchase mode, grid companies must first perform the contract. This is extremely uneconomical and not environmentally friendly. Based on hedging theory, this paper proposes a power purchase optimization model using the strategy of “compression and compensation”. If outer price is lower than the contract price, the grid can compress contract power appropriately, leaving more space for purchasing electricity;if outer price is not attractive enough, the grid should timely improve contract proportion, compensating the deviations of contract caused by "compression". Based on the strategy of "compression and compensation", it can effectively reduce the abandoned wind and water, enhance the economic and social benefits of provincial power grid.

A Line Complex-Based Evolutionary Algorithm for Many-Objective Optimization

In solving many-objective optimization problems(MaO Ps),existing nondominated sorting-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithms suffer from the fast loss of selection pressure.Most candidate solutions become nondominated during the evolutionary process,thus leading to the failure of producing offspring toward Pareto-optimal front with diversity.Can we find a more effective way to select nondominated solutions and resolve this issue?To answer this critical question,this work proposes to evolve solutions through line complex rather than solution points in Euclidean space.First,Plücker coordinates are used to project solution points to line complex composed of position vectors and momentum ones.Besides position vectors of the solution points,momentum vectors are used to extend the comparability of nondominated solutions and enhance selection pressure.Then,a new distance function designed for high-dimensional space is proposed to replace Euclidean distance as a more effective distancebased estimator.Based on them,a novel many-objective evolutionary algorithm(MaOEA)is proposed by integrating a line complex-based environmental selection strategy into the NSGAⅢframework.The proposed algorithm is compared with the state of the art on widely used benchmark problems with up to 15 objectives.Experimental results demonstrate its superior competitiveness in solving MaOPs.

Coordinated optimization setting of reagent dosages in roughing-scavenging process of antimony flotation

Considering the influence of reagent adjustment in different flotation bank on the final production index and the difficulty of establishing an effective mathematical model,a coordinated optimization method for dosage reagent based on key characteristics variation tendency and case-based reasoning is proposed.On the basis of the expert reagent regulation method in antimony flotation process,the reagent dosage pre-setting model of the roughing–scavenging bank is constructed based on case-based reasoning.Then,the sensitivity index is used to calculate the key features of reagent dosage.The reagent dosage compensation model is constructed based on the variation tendency of the key features in the roughing and scavenging process.At last,the prediction model is used to finish the classification and discriminant analysis.The simulation results and industrial experiment in antimony flotation process show that the proposed method reduces fluctuation of the tailings indicators and the cost of reagent dosage.It can lay a foundation for optimizing the whole process of flotation.

Cooperative multi-target hunting by unmanned surface vehicles based on multi-agent reinforcement learning

To solve the problem of multi-target hunting by an unmanned surface vehicle(USV)fleet,a hunting algorithm based on multi-agent reinforcement learning is proposed.Firstly,the hunting environment and kinematic model without boundary constraints are built,and the criteria for successful target capture are given.Then,the cooperative hunting problem of a USV fleet is modeled as a decentralized partially observable Markov decision process(Dec-POMDP),and a distributed partially observable multitarget hunting Proximal Policy Optimization(DPOMH-PPO)algorithm applicable to USVs is proposed.In addition,an observation model,a reward function and the action space applicable to multi-target hunting tasks are designed.To deal with the dynamic change of observational feature dimension input by partially observable systems,a feature embedding block is proposed.By combining the two feature compression methods of column-wise max pooling(CMP)and column-wise average-pooling(CAP),observational feature encoding is established.Finally,the centralized training and decentralized execution framework is adopted to complete the training of hunting strategy.Each USV in the fleet shares the same policy and perform actions independently.Simulation experiments have verified the effectiveness of the DPOMH-PPO algorithm in the test scenarios with different numbers of USVs.Moreover,the advantages of the proposed model are comprehensively analyzed from the aspects of algorithm performance,migration effect in task scenarios and self-organization capability after being damaged,the potential deployment and application of DPOMH-PPO in the real environment is verified.

Multi-objective intelligent coordinating optimization blending system based on qualitative and quantitative synthetic model

A multi-objective intelligent coordinating optimization strategy based on qualitative and quantitative synthetic model for Pb-Zn sintering blending process was proposed to obtain optimal mixture ratio. The mechanism and neural network quantitative models for predicting compositions and rule models for expert reasoning were constructed based on statistical data and empirical knowledge. An expert reasoning method based on these models were proposed to solve blending optimization problem, including multi-objective optimization for the first blending process and area optimization for the second blending process, and to determine optimal mixture ratio which will meet the requirement of intelligent coordination. The results show that the qualified rates of agglomerate Pb, Zn and S compositions are increased by 7.1%, 6.5% and 6.9%, respectively, and the fluctuation of sintering permeability is reduced by 7.0%, which effectively stabilizes the agglomerate compositions and the permeability.